The Casino
by mnfowler
Summary: You are 007 on a secret mission to thwart a particularly cruel and clever villain, and an innocent-seeming game of cards has the potential to turn deadly.
1. Chapter 1

You walk into the casino and set a deliberate course for the baccarat table. As you pass a series of floor to ceiling mirrors, you notice that the clean lines of your eveningwear, so impeccably crisp and elegant, perfectly conceal your Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol. You smile at the dealer, a young woman dressed in the same white shirt and liveried vest as the male croupiers. Unlike the men, however, she alone has shiny red cufflinks that match the design of the ruby-colored vest. The rest of the dealers, you notice, have black and white cufflinks. Perhaps the house has rewarded her with special cufflinks in recognition of her special skills.

She smiles back at you, but you are already making mental notes about the others at the table, though their backs are toward you. One is a plump, middle-aged man, and another a younger man, tall and thin with a prominent adam's apple, blond hair and wispy first mustache. Both men wear black tuxedos. Then there is a woman in a green empire gown, a choke of matching emeralds around her neck, and brunette hair piled on her head in a pompadour. There is plenty of room at the table. In fact, it cries out for more players. This is why the dealer smiles so invitingly.

"De la Banque à la Banque," says the dealer in a perfect Parisian accent. Is she a bit far south from home, you wonder, or has she improved her speech through some correspondence course? You wait until there is a pause and she deals you in.

The young man on your left is not doing well. He looks a bit disheveled, his collar undone, empty wallet on the table. The cards are swiftly dealt and you peek at yours. They add up to seven. That is probably the best you can do. You stick with what you have, but the nervous youth asks for another card. He has no poker face at all and you see the chagrin in his mouth and eyes as soon as he sees the card he got. The color drains from his already pale cheeks, and you know he must concede defeat.

The plump businessman to your left is as cool as the young man is over-heated. He smiles beatifically. He has seen his cards and he is standing pat. The woman on the other side of the youth has asked for a card, and now she is smiling too. You think to yourself that it is likely that one or both of them has a better hand than you do. Should you get another card or leave it alone? You decide to see what will happen when one of your competitors wins.

Now it is time for everyone to show his hand. The youth has four, you have seven, the lady has eight and the older gentleman has nine. His ruddy face breaks into a grin. He is the one to beat at this table. At least he was until you came along.

Two hands later and the youth has slunk away in defeat, the lady is down, and she, too, resigns. But you and the older gentleman are tied. He smiles directly at you, but you can tell he is sizing you up.

"Let us make this next hand interesting," he says in accented but impeccable English. "Say, perhaps, two million francs?"

"How about ten million," you say. Ice could not melt in your mouth as you add, "That would be even more interesting."

The gentleman's face breaks into that winner's smile. "Very well," he replies. "Ten million francs it is." He tells the dealer in French what the two of you intend. The dealer shows no change in expression. She understood perfectly well, and she knows that your credit is as good as his.

Out come the cards from the dealer's shoe and she puts them before each of you. You each peek. You glance at him but his face is a blank, and you know that yours is, too.

You have a seven once again. He asks for a card. It is a Jack. You try to read him again but cannot. You ask for a card, as well. A two. He stands pat. So do you. The cards are turned and, incredibly, you both have nines.

"Once again?" you say.

"Double or nothing," he says.

"That makes things very interesting, indeed," you say.

The cards are dealt once more. This time you have a three. He is unreadable as ever as he peeks at his card. You ask for another and so does he. You have a five and he has a four.

Keeping your thoughts close is not easy, but you calculate your odds as well as his. The dealer looks pleasantly yet expectantly at each of you.

The man who is your opponent leans toward the dealer and speaks to her in French. Not his native language or yours, but you know enough to recognize that he is as fluent in it as he is in English. No doubt he is trilingual, at least. His native language, you discern, must be an Eastern European one, perhaps Czech. The dealer says, "D'accord, Monsieur."

You understood enough of what he has said, and to which she has just agreed, to anticipate his next utterance, which is directed toward you.

"Let us make this even more interesting and double it again. Say, forty million francs?"

"D'accord," you say so that the dealer as well as your opponent will understand your position.

He then asks for yet another card. An ace this time.

You know that the odds against another ace coming out of the shoe are astronomical. A ten would be as good, a Jack would be better, but, if you get another face card, you will lose all forty million francs, the entire stake that M allotted for this operation. On the other hand, you know that Le Chat cannot afford to lose forty million, either. SMERSH would have his skin tanned and stretched on a wall in the inner sanctum of Stalin's dacha, possibly with his taxidermied head mounted next to it.

You put all of these considerations to one side as you firmly tap your finger on your cards. The dealer immediately puts down another card on top of your hand.

A Jack. If Le Chat has nine, you are tied. Again. If not, you have won. Forty million francs to add to the forty million M gave you to use. Ruefully, you reflect that all of it will go into the royal exchequer. They say that a spy has no friend, but you would rather that be your fate if only you could keep the profits from this game. If you win it, that is.

The cards are turned. You, of course, have nine.

Le Chat has eight.

The plump man begins to smolder as he otherwise sits very still, just staring at the cards on the table. The dealer takes all of the chips and gives them to you.

"Merci, Monsieur," you say. "As you promised, this has been a very interesting game."

Le Chat barely acknowledges you, but you believe that you can detect the wheels turning behind his eyes. He will not allow you to get away with this if he can help it, you conclude.

You gather up all of your chips. A man in a liveried jacket helps you put them on a tray, and you follow him to the cage where you exchange them for real francs. Eight hundred, hundred-franc notes in a suitcase. You get your coat, hat and other accessories from the cloakroom, and walk outside into the car park carrying a suitcase. Everything is bathed in the light of a beautiful full moon, its light glinting ghostily off the chrome on your Astin Martin sports coupe.

As you are about to get in, two men, one short and one tall, in dark trench coats and fedora hats get out of the car behind yours and rapidly approach you. You have no time to draw your pistol, but you turn and step in front of your car door as you open it. The closest thug, the tall one, walks right into it as you slam the door on his coat and step back. Then you step in again and strike him in the throat with an open-handed scooping technique, as if to remove his adam's apple right out of his neck. To your surprise, you suddenly see that it is him, the youth you had believed to be just what he seemed, a loser at cards; but here he is, losing his wind and foolishly still trying to tug his coat from between your car's door frame and the driver's door as he makes gagging noises.

The other thug is coming around the front of the car and has his gun out now. But so do you. Two bursts through your silencer and he goes down without a whimper.

Another two shots, and the blond youth goes down, too. You open the door to let his coat free, and his body does a half roll as the slack lets him fall all the way.

"Very good," says Le Chat. You turn, and there he is, pointing a large revolver at you.

You remember that a revolver has a tendency to pull to the right, especially sure to be a pronounced effect in so large a gun. So you dive to his left behind the car next to yours. Le Chat fires. The loud report is going to attract attention, you think, but you might be dead before anyone comes. Fortunately for you, his bullet penetrates the Ferrari you dove behind. Not very fortunate for the owner, you think. Such a beautiful car.

You fire back from behind a fender. Le Chat has taken cover, too. You trade two more shots. Now you are out of bullets, while he has one left. You've got to make him waste it.

Then you hear him advancing. He knows you are empty, too.

Your best chance is to retreat from car to car, stepping backward while in a crouch. Your formalwear makes this somewhat difficult, but you persevere. If you can make it around this last car in the row, you determine that you will make a run for it.

But suddenly he is there, leveling his pistol at your face.

"I will have my eighty million francs, Monsieur," he says.

"You're a greedy one, aren't you," you say. "The forty million isn't yours anymore. I won it fair and square. Yet now you want my half as well."

"I will have all of the money," he says firmly. "I will have it from you while you are still alive, or I will have it after I shoot you dead."

"I notice that you are multi-lingual," you say.

"What are you talking about?" You have perplexed him with an irrelevant remark. No one ever expects the irrelevant.

"You speak very good English. And French. And your native language is, what, Czech?"

"Slovakian."

"Ah. And how is your Spanish?"

"Good enough. What has this to do with anything?"

"Well, you see, my favorite film comedian in the whole world is Cantinflas. Do you know his movies?"

"I do not attend the cinema as often as you apparently do. It is a waste of time."

"Ah, well, I tend to disagree. I don't think you realize what you're missing. In any case, Cantinflas has a catchphrase, in Spanish 'Aqui esta el detalle'. You know what that means?"

Now you have Le Chat thinking about it.

"Yes, it means something like 'Here's the thing'."

"Right. Well, aqui esta el detalle, with regard to the money. You see, I don't have it on me."

"But how could you not have it on you? I just followed you out of the casino, and you still have the case in your hand. You never had a chance to switch it."

"Well, if you will allow me to open it, you can see for yourself." You open the case and tip it so that he can see that it is empty.

"You will regret playing tricks," says Le Chat. "Throw that over to me."

"Gladly," you say. You throw the case at his head and dive behind a Lamborghini. Another sickly sound as Le Chat's last bullet penetrates the lovely paint job on the boot of the car.

You then emerge and approach him, but Le Chat has drawn a knife from under his coat. He lunges for you, but you step out of his way. He turns to face you. You then grab his wrist with your left hand and place your right hand over his and twist his wrist inward so that the knife now points almost toward his torso. You wrench his wrist further and take the knife away from him. Then you elbow him in the face, breaking his nose with a crunch.

Le Chat falls to the pavement. At first on one knee, but then he falls onto his side.

Suddenly, you feel something grip you around your neck. It feels like a vice. It has a body with legs firmly attached to it and its full weight is pulling you backward. Just before you black out, you notice that the sleeve is remarkably white over an arm that is thin despite its concentrated strength, and you notice the liveried cufflink that holds the dealer's cuff together. It is predominantly ruby-red and forms the coat of arms of the casino.


	2. Chapter 2

You crawl out of a black tunnel only to realize there is a too bright light in your face. It causes you to squint and cringe, and then you realize that your eyes are not even open yet.

"You can wake up now, 007," says a familiar, Czechoslovakian accented voice. "I have been patient enough." You feel a slap across your face. Instinctively you want to defend yourself, but your arms cannot move. It feels as if wide belts tighten over each of your forearms. Rough leather cuffs immobilize your wrists. Your legs, likewise, are strapped to the hard chair in which you sit.

You feel you are no longer formally dressed. In fact, you have been stripped to your underwear. You open your eyes, wince in the glare. On the edge of the blazing light is the form of Le Chat. Very close in, but nevertheless obscured by the white glow.

"Where is the money, 007?"

You wish you could rub your throat which is sore where you were choked by the dealer. It isn't going to be easy to speak but you do anyway. "It is back at the casino, Le Chat. Where you cannot get it."

"We'll see about that. Where at the casino is it?"

"Where you can never get it."

"Wrong answer, 007." So saying, Le Chat's ample figure moves out of the way, and a lithe figure steps in. Something as hard as steel strikes your cheek bone. That is going to leave a serious bruise, you think. Then another, similar blow strikes the opposite cheek. Your head is being knocked from side to side. There is a pause. You look at your assailant. She is blocking the light bulb, so you see the room clearly for the first time. Yes, it is the dealer, all right. Her honey-colored hair is nominally still pinned back but wisps of it are valiantly escaping. She has removed the vest and rolled up the sleeves of her white shirt, which no longer looks freshly laundered. You can no longer see those ruby cufflinks, but on each hand she wears a set of brass knuckles, or perhaps they are steel. You feel and smell the blood trickling down your face. It touches the corner of your mouth and you taste it.

"Where is the money, 007."

"All you seem to care about is money," you observe. "Has anyone ever told you that that is a character flaw?"

You see Le Chat nod toward the dealer, and she moves in and socks you again. This is getting a bit monotonous, you think.

You cannot see your own face, but after an hour of pain and obvious swelling you make a mental note to set aside that beauty contest application. A glance around the room reveals that the dealer is having a smoke while Le Chat is on the phone. The dealer is taking a much needed break now, poor girl. Your left eye is closing fast. She must favor her right.

Funny thing about these villains, you think. They took off all of your outer clothing but left your shoes on your feet. What is that about? If only you could reach your right shoe, you might get at the one-inch blade hidden the heel. It isn't very long, but it is made of surgical steel and very sharp.

You try to free your hand. You try to lean your way out of your bonds, but they are too tight. Suddenly, you window of opportunity is over. They are coming back.

"All of your suffering has been for nothing," says Le Chat. "We found your man in the casino—the one who kept the money in the cage. Very clever of you, but you should have chosen someone to protect the money who has your stamina. He gave in more quickly than you."

"Is he still alive?"

"Your concern is very touching, I am sure," says Le Chat. "He was alive until we found the money, but I just gave the order for his death. I am going to go back to the casino and pick up my eighty million francs."

This hits you harder than you would have expected, but it is one thing to put your own life on the line, and quite another for a friend to lose his life because he helped you. That really bothers you.

"Thank you for leaving me your government's forty million, by the way," adds Le Chat. "Which, of course, means we have no further use for you." He nods to the dealer who gives you a powerful punch in the jaw. Le Chat continues. "I would have Isabelle finish you off with her hands, but, as you know, she must make her living with those hands at the card table. She cannot overdo it with the fisticuffs even though she is very good at it. I think you are in a position to agree."

"Is this leading to a point, Le Chat?"

"Ah, the point, 007, is that we are going to leave you, and we won't see each other again. There is a bomb under your chair, and once we start the clock, it will explode in fifteen minutes." He nods to the dealer again, but this time she does not strike you. Instead, she bends over and you can feel her reaching under the chair. You hear a click. Then she straightens up again.

Le Chat takes her by the arm and they walk out together. Nice couple, you think. You were rooting for them to get together.

O.K., you think to yourself. Give the kids a chance to start the car so you know they aren't going to come back because they forgot the car keys. You hear the vroom, vroom of your own Astin Martin starting up, and you feel a real sting knowing that they are using it. You wince when you can tell from the sound that whichever of them is driving is not getting the depression of the clutch and petrol pedal coordinated properly. Then you hear them drive away.

"Fantastic," you mutter to yourself. Which way—if any—should you topple the chair? You struggle against your bonds a bit and confirm your suspicion that that isn't going to work. Then you shift and rock from side to side. You are not getting very far that way, either, but you can feel the chair giving a little with each movement. Eventually, by twisting and leaning, you managed to slide one side of the chair back and then the other side. Finally, you have the bomb under the chair partly exposed. Looking down at it, you see that it is a massive, solid metal box. There are no wires along the edge that is now exposed.

Then you wriggle your legs until gravity helps to bring the straps that bind them down to your ankles. You free one leg and, taking a risk, put your heel on the edge of the bomb, and push yourself backwards, careful to bring your chin to your chest so that you don't bang your head against the floor when you land on your back. But you don't hit the floor. There is a crate behind you and you are leaning against that at an angle.

Bringing your right knee up as far as you can, you wriggle your right wrist now, trying to free it from the leather strap holding it to the arm of the chair. It takes a good six minutes to get your arm free. Assuming Le Chat was telling the truth, you have less than ten to escape. You listen and hear the soft ticking of the box beneath the chair. "Back to work," you tell yourself. It takes another three minutes to reach the heel of your shoe. Knowing where to push, you easily expose the hilt of the knife and begin tweezering it out with your fingertips. You draw it out of its compartment, but you are sweating now and it starts to slip out of your wet fingers.

You put one finger over the other until you get all of your fingers around the knife. You feel how sharp the blade is, but that turns out to be reassuring, because you know the blade is going to be put to the test. Four minutes left.

You begin sawing on the leather straps. One by one until each gives way. You now calculate there is one or one and a half minutes left before the bomb is scheduled to blow. As you cut the last bond, you jump up and run for the nearest window. It may not be locked, but you do not have time to spare, so you grab a piece of canvas, cross your arms in front of you and leap through the window.

Shattering glass slices one of your arms and the opposite leg, but you land relatively softly in a bin of trash. You roll and begin to notice that the trash, while not overly organic, does have a musty smell. At least your cuts are superficial, but you make a mental note to get a tetanus shot.

The explosion knocks the bin over, dumping you out on the pavement. You clamber to your feet, but it is already over but for the smoke. As the smoke begins to clear, you notice that you are in a dockside warehouse district. In your underwear. It all reminds you of a recurring dream you once had. Only without the academic exam or the pending stage performance. You realize, too, in the moonlight, that an expanse of sea, sparkling with light in its myriad gentle wavelets, extends to the horizon. It is good to be alive, isn't it?

There is a long truck at one end of a nearby loading dock. The sirens in the distance tell you that you will not be alone for long. You rush to the cab and find it unlocked. A cursory search, however, does not turn up the keys. With your small, sharp knife, you hotwire the truck and get it moving. Once you reach the city, you come to a traffic light, and you glance at the clipboard mounted over the glove box. It shows that the contents of the trailer behind you are clothing. Specifically, men's and women's suit and dresses. It is too good to pass up.


	3. Chapter 3

Half an hour later, you arrive by taxi and get out half a block from Le Chat's luxurious high-rise. Your dark attire blends with that of passersby straggling home from an evening of drinking and gambling. You slur as you tell the doorman of Le Chat's building that you cannot find your keys. He is new and has to look you up. "Berger," you tell him. He finds the name and lets you in. This does not surprise you. Berger is the name of the chief of security at the casino, and you had suspected that he was on Le Chat's payroll. How else could he afford to live in this building? Of course, he and his wife live on the sixth floor while Le Chat lives in the penthouse, but the arrangement puts Berger at Le Chat's beck and call.

You get in the elevator and ride up to the floor beneath the penthouse. To reach the penthouse requires a special key, which you do not happen to have. The door opens onto the penultimate floor, and Isabelle is standing there. Her eyes widen when she sees you. Then she knits her brow determinedly and launches into the elevator car. The elevator car is large, and there is ample space for a fight. You would have preferred closer quarters where you feel you usually fight best. In this ring, however, you find you cannot get close to her, which is a problem because she kicks. The first kick is unexpected and drives a toe point into your torso close enough to your liver to make you guess that that was where she was aiming. The two of you square off as the door closes. She kicks again but this time you grab her foot by the heel and try to control her. She hits you in the face, barehanded this time, but your left eye is tender enough that it makes you let go and back off in a hurry. She comes at you again, this time with knife drawn. But you, too, have a knife, and though yours is a tad smaller than hers, her make it count.

You search her lifeless body, and, sure enough, she has a key to the penthouse.

When door to the elevator opens on the penthouse floor, the guard outside cannot see you. You broke the light so that the car is darkened. He peers into the elevator and the first thing he sees is Isabelle's body in a rear corner. He rushes toward her, and you step out from the opposite corner and take him in a choke hold, then set his lifeless body in the other rear corner.

You take the pistol from his holster and slip out of the elevator. You tiptoe down the hallway to the lavish living room with the long, stepped-up kitchenette to one side. The floor-to-ceiling windows show the city's lights and the broad sea beyond them. The lights of ships dot the harbor.

A room beyond the living room emits a dim light. As you approach, you hear rustling sounds coming from the room, as well. Staying close to the wall, you raise the pistol in both hands. The sounds of someone bustling around in the room grow louder. You step out from the wall at the last moment so that you are not so close to the doorway as to be vulnerable to someone who might be hiding around its corner. Side-stepping slowly, you look into the dimly lit room. The room is revealed to you, slice by slice. It is a bedroom with a closet to one side and another floor-to-ceiling picture window on the other. The window is covered now with deep blue drapes. The floor is hard wood strategically covered with expensive area carpets. One of the smallest is now beneath your feet. It is crimson with gold designs woven into it and runs at an angle from the doorway toward the bed. The white bedspread is festooned with folded shirts and toiletries, all arranged around an open suitcase. As your view exposes even more of the room, you see a smaller open suitcase next to the larger one. It brims with neat bundles of crisp francs.

Then a plump man in slacks and polo shirt steps into view, folded cashmere sweater in his hands, and he is about to place it in the suitcase when he suddenly turns toward you. His eyes widen and his jaw drops.

"You!"

"I'm impressed to find that you do your own packing, Le Chat," you say.

Now you find out why they call this stocky man of middling height "Le Chat." He leaps out of your view as gracefully as a dancer, so you step into the room and turn to where you think he should be, but he is not there. He then pops up from behind the bed and aims a Colt vest pocket pistol at you.

You go down to the floor on the opposite side of the bed and fire under it, but just as you do so, the bed shakes as Le Chat jumps onto the bed and begins clambering toward you. You roll toward the foot of the bed and try to take him by surprise by popping up before he knows you are there, but he is already aiming in your direction, so you roll again, this time toward the closet. He is in the catbird seat in the virtual center of the room, you realize. So you only feint toward the closet but actually roll under the bed from the side and fire a shot up through the mattress toward the head. Then you roll out the foot again.

You are still in a crouch at the foot of the bed, and Le Chat is waiting for you by the doorway. He levels his pistol at you, but you choose that moment to grab the edge of the crimson and gold rug and yank it out from under his feet. His shot goes wild as he stumbles toward the window. You charge him, and your two tangled bodies slam into the drape-covered windows. The fabric rips as the glass breaks and in an instant you are both struggling on the balcony.

For such a balmy night the wind is strong so high above the earth. It whips across your face as Le Chat pushes you against the rail of the balcony. His hand presses your chin, forcing your head to bend backward. You have his lapels clenched in your hands but know that the flimsy material will tear away if your whole weight goes over the rail.

Le Chat shifts his left hand to your throat and lets go of you with the right long enough to deliver a punch to your ribs. You have born too much pain tonight to let that distract you. Before he can get in another punch with his right, you twist your body so as to bring your right arm inside, and then swing it up and over his left. Bearing down you force his elbow to bend and then you snap your head forward, striking him in the nose for the second time tonight with your forehead. This time, it is his turn to flinch, and he releases your throat and steps back.

You square off, and he draws his knife. You draw yours, too, but his might as well be a sword by comparison.

He lunges and you step toward the building. Then he turns toward you and lunges again. This time when you step away your back is to the side of the balcony. He lunges yet again and you clinch once more, but this time you have enough room to side step and your training comes back fully. Taking his knife hand by the wrist, you step aside and turn out of his way, leading him forward and over the rail.

You go to the edge and look down. He is still falling, evidently too stunned to cry out, or perhaps he does, but you cannot hear it over the wind buffeting you at this altitude. Though you hear nothing, you see the impact when his body hits the ground.

"Hmm," you muse, "I thought a cat would always land on his feet."

You turn back to the room, picking up the guns and his knife and throwing them under the bed, keeping only your own knife, which you put back into its compartment in the heel of your shoe. Then you quickly calculate how much money is in the smaller suitcase and close it.

You remove the bodies from the elevator, which has not moved since you left it. You take it down to the seventh floor where you get out and take the service elevator to the garage where you find your Astin, the spare key under the passenger's seat where you left it. As you come out of the alley two buildings down from Le Chat's high-rise, you notice the crowd gathered in front of the apartment building, the flashing lights of the police cars. You neither look nor linger but turn in the opposite direction and carry M's money, plus Le Chat's, back toward the casino. There you will gather your belongings from your hotel room and head for the airport and home to London.

END


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